It has been 136 days — almost five months — since the newly labelled Verizon IndyCar Series last laid rubber on a race track in earnest.

That is the longest off-season of any major motorsports series. NASCAR has five races in the books already, Formula 1 will do its second race of the season Sunday and Moto GP started its season a week ago.

So the 22 drivers who will line up Friday morning for practice at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg are, to say the least, raring to go.

And they will face a different rules package this season.

Gone is the ten grid positions penalty that IndyCar had last season when a team changed engines, even when that engine blew up all on its own.

Also new this year are safety modifications to the Dallara DW12 chassis including:

* Carbon-fibre panels on the exterior and interior sides of the cockpit to supplement the current anti-intrusion panels for additional side impact integrity.

What hasn’t changed, though, is the fact the IndyCar series still lags far behind the NASCAR behemoth in terms of both live attendance and television ratings.

The product on the track is as good as any form of racing on this continent and the drivers — for the most part — are immensely skilled.

IndyCar will get more media exposure this season than in the recent past and it is hoped that will boost its recognition factor.

And it all starts Sunday at St. Petersburg.

THE FINISH LINE

The Dean of Speed’s Top 10 Verizon IndyCar Series drivers and where he thinks they will place at the end of 2014

1. WILL POWER

The 2013 IndyCar season was an all-around disappointment for the Toowoomba, Australia native — even with a late push that netted the No. 12 Penske Racing team three wins in the final five races.

All important, however, was his win at the big two-mile oval at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.

It proved that Power could win on ovals, the Achilles’ heel that had plagued his IndyCar career to that point.

What motivates him this season should be the addition of Juan Pablo Montoya to the Penske group.

Another season without a championship could put him in danger of being dropped from the powerful Penske squad especially if he is behind both Montoya and Helio Castroneves in the points parade.

2. SCOTT DIXON

The reigning IndyCar champion takes over as the lead driver for the Target Ganassi Racing team this season after Dario Franchitti and his four IndyCar championships left the series after his crash last season at Houston.

Dixon will miss his close friend and teammate more than he thinks. The two traded information in a way seldom seen at this level of racing.

Dixon will also be dealing with a new engine manufacturer with the Target team switching to Chevrolet power from Honda this season.

The native New Zealander has spent his whole IndyCar career with Honda so it might take some time to get used to his new power plant.

3. JAMES HINCHCLIFFE

Hinchcliffe gets my home-town bonus points but he deserves to be taken seriously as a title contender with his three wins last season in the No. 27 Andretti Autosport machine.

In his favour this season is the new rule that allows teams to change engines without a grid penalty — something that plagued Hinchcliffe last season, especially at the Honda Indy Toronto double-header.

He will have his challenges this year with a new engine supplier — Honda — and a new engineer in Nathan O’Rourke, but Hinchcliffe, at 27, is nearing the peak of his athletic prowess and should be able to adapt to a new man atop the pit box.

A good start at the Firestone St. Petersburg Grand Prix will go a long way to a successful season.

4. RYAN HUNTER-REAY

Hunter-Reay had a miserable end to the 2013 IndyCar season with finishes of 20th at Baltimore, 21st at the first Houston race, 20th at the second Houston race before rallying for a ninth at Fontana.

It dropped Hunter-Reay to seventh in the title chase after starting the season as the 2012 IndyCar series champion.

But, like Hinchcliffe, Hunter-Reay was hit with numerous engine issues that he could not overcome as the season progressed.

He should come to St. Petersburg with a new sense of purpose, one that could well propel him to another championship run.

Hunter-Reay is the closest there is to a home town favourite in Florida but he must get his ducks in a row early to regain his winning form.

5. HELIO CASTRONEVES

One would think that Castroneves would have an IndyCar series championship trophy on his mantle by now.

The Brazilian native has his face three times on the Warner Borg trophy, emblematic of his three Indianapolis 500 wins, but he has never been able to translate that into a diver’s championship for his Penske Racing boss Roger Penske.

Last season Castroneves had his best overall results without winning at Indianapolis — matching his career-best second place — behind Scott Dixon.

At 38 years old, Castroneves doesn’t have a lot of time left to make it to the championship level and Penske won’t keep him around just for sentimental reasons.

The time for Castroneves to win is now.

6. SIMON PAGENAUD

If Simon Pagenaud was driving for a more competitive outfit other than Schmidt Patterson Hamilton Motorsports, he might have rated much higher on this Top 10, but even with the limited — compared to Andretti, Ganassi or Penske — resources available to him the Frenchman did extraordinarily well in the 2013 IndyCar season.

Pagenaud managed wins at Belle Isle (Detroit) and Baltimore to go along with a podium finish at Mid Ohio.

It got him into contention for the championship with another ten Top 10 results.

It wasn’t enough, however, to keep pace with Dixon and Castroneves.

Still, third place in the championship has to be considered a huge accomplishment and an equally huge boost in his stock.

If the team can keep giving him good cars to drive he is fully capable of challenging the big boys.

7. TONY KANAAN

The question is how much longer can Tony Kanaan drive at the top levels in open-wheel racing?

Last season Kanaan capped his 17-year open-wheel career with a very popular Indianapolis 500 win.

But at the end of the season, driving the No. 11 KV Racing Technology Chevrolet, Kanaan was mired in 11th position, a long way back from the championship he last won in 2004 while driving for Michael Andretti.

This season Kanaan moves into the much sought-after No. 10 Chevrolet seat vacated by Dario Franchitti’s forced retirement.

If it was based on popularity alone, it could be said Kanaan deserved the upgrade from KVRT, but there are lots of doubters who believe a younger driver would have been a better choice.

8. SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS

It has been seven long seasons since Sebastien Bourdais completed a record fourth consecutive open-wheel championship with then Newman Haas Racing in the old Champ Car World Series.

The native of Le Mans, France, spent four of those seasons trying, and not succeeding, in making a mark in Formula 1, but circumstance and F-1 politics prevented him from having the kind of results he was used to getting.

Bourdais returned to North America and IndyCar racing in 2011 but was unable — mostly due to driving for underfunded teams — to replicate his Champ Car heroics.

This season he signed with KVRT to replace Kanaan and the hope is he can return to form as a winner.

9. JUAN PABLO MONTOYA

You can say with certainty that Montoya has won at every level of racing he has entered.

However, he spent he past seven season in NASCAR Sprint Cup and his only wins came on the two road courses — Sonoma and Watkins Glen. In the middle of last season Ganassi Racing informed him they were not picking up his contract.

Roger Penske signed him to an IndyCar deal and is betting he can get the old Montoya back, the one with an Indianapolis 500 win and a CART championship.

Montoya will have to remember these cars don’t have fenders and rein in his reputation for rough racing.

But he does have the talent if he puts his mind to it.

10. MARCO ANDRETTI

If you just ask him, Marco is on the road to winning a championship.

Unfortunately he may be the only one in the IndyCar paddock who agrees.

Andretti has the blood lines, grandson of the great Mario Andretti and the son of seven-time Honda Indy Toronto winner Michael Andretti.

He has not shown in eight years in the series that he inherited much of that gene pool, however, with only two wins in 133 starts, with the last one coming three seasons ago.

But he does have good equipment and the best team Andretti Autosport can supply him with.

Andretti had his best-ever season in 2013 finishing fifth in the championship.

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Dean of Speed's IndyCar Preview

It has been 136 days — almost five months — since the newly labelled Verizon IndyCar Series last laid rubber on a race track in earnest.

That is the longest off-season of any major motorsports series. NASCAR has five races in the books already, Formula 1 will do its second race of the season Sunday and Moto GP started its season a week ago.

So the 22 drivers who will line up Friday morning for practice at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg are, to say the least, raring to go.

And they will face a different rules package this season.

Gone is the ten grid positions penalty that IndyCar had last season when a team changed engines, even when that engine blew up all on its own.

Also new this year are safety modifications to the Dallara DW12 chassis including:

* Carbon-fibre panels on the exterior and interior sides of the cockpit to supplement the current anti-intrusion panels for additional side impact integrity.

When Kyle Busch emerged from his No.
18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota late Sunday
afternoon in Victory Lane at
Indianapolis Motor Speedway after
winning the Brickyard 400 among his
first words were that he was “happy.”